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TODAY o July 29, 2000
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Atlanta home to some, but asylum elusive
Saeed Ahmed - Staff
Saturday, July 29, 2000
Until three months ago, Edgar Maldonado was a relatively wealthy,
well-respected television journalist in Bogota. But in strife-torn Colombia,
where the conflict between leftist guerrillas and right- wing death squads
have led to virtual lawlessness, wealth and ties to the media can get you
killed.
When a close friend was gunned down in a hail of bullets on his way to work at
a radio station, and another was abducted to send a message to journalists to
self-censor their coverage of the political violence, Maldonado decided he had
no choice but to flee.
"I was getting two, three death threats a day and when I contacted the police,
they simply said, 'Take care; yours is not a serious situation,' " said Maldonado,
48. "But in the last five months, the situation at work got so bad that the
director of the station said, 'You are welcome to continue working for us, but
you better go off some place where you'll be more safe.' "
So, like thousands of Colombian professionals, Maldonado left his
well-established life behind and moved to Atlanta --- drawn to the city, he
said, by abundant job opportunities and a better standard of living than
elsewhere in the United States.
"In Colombia, if people get the impression you have some money, you can be
assured you or someone in your family will be among the 10- 15 people who
are kidnapped and held for ransom daily to fund the civil war," Maldonado said.
"So what choice do you have? If you are poor, like 80 percent of the population
is, you simply move from one part of the country to another. But if you can
afford it, you give up everything you worked hard for and leave, whatever the
outcome may be."
Maldonado was lucky. Soon after moving to Atlanta, he found a job as an editor
with La Voz del Pueblo, the only foreign-language newspaper catering to
Colombians in the area.
But for most escapees, "whatever the outcome may be" means taking up work
in restaurants and grocery stores --- a far cry from the affluence they were
used to at home.
An estimated 30,000 Colombians now live in the metro area, concentrated
mostly in Cobb and Gwinnett counties. The Colombian Consul General expects
10,000 more to arrive this year, making Colombians the second-largest Latino
group here, after Mexicans.
Since the U.S. government frowns upon granting asylum to people fleeing
countries it considers allies, only a handful of Colombians can claim asylum.
Most come on temporary travel visas and stay beyond the return date.
W. Fred Alexander, acting Immigration and Naturalization director in Atlanta,
said that, although a substantial number of Colombians have lately expressed
concern for their safety, no change in policy is expected soon.
"We will continue to judge each asylum application on its merits," he said.
This pains Maldonado, who misses his wife and two teenage children still in
Bogota. He has resigned himself to navigating through lengthy bureaucratic red
tape before he can expect to be reunited with them.
"But such is life," he said. "I am a man without a country, and they are a family
that is not whole."
Maldonado misses his country and yearns to return. But he also knows that the
turmoil in Colombia is unlikely to end soon, and the exodus to Atlanta and
other cities will continue.
"Things are very gray and people have lost all hope," he said. "Unfortunately,
the situation will get much, much worse before it gets better in Colombia."
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